LDS Church dedicates new Deseret Industries in Sandy

Representatives from local leadership gather as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints opens a new Deseret Industries as well as an LDS Family Services Agency and an LDS Employment Resource Center Wednesday, Aug. 14, 2013, in Sandy.

Scott G Winterton, Deseret News

Summary

President Henry B. Eyring dedicated the LDS Church's new welfare facility in Sandy Wednesday evening as "a house of healing" and a place "designed to clothe, heal, comfort, teach and encourage" God's precious children.

“We cannot and we will not shift this responsibility of caring for the poor to others. We cannot delegate it to our neighbor.”

President Henry B. Eyring

SANDY — Referring to it as a "temporal representation of our spiritual commitment to fly to the aid of the Lord's poor," President Henry B. Eyring dedicated the LDS Church's new welfare facility in Sandy Wednesday evening as "a house of healing" and a place "designed to clothe, heal, comfort, teach and encourage" God's precious children.

The 58,656-square foot building is located at 825 E. 9400 South. The dedication drew some 700 invited guests and dignitaries who sat in the sales area of the new Deseret Industries thrift store, which is linked in the new facility with a LDS Employment Resources Center and a LDS Family Service Center.

"The transformational work performed in these welfare facilities is a noble endeavor," said President Eyring, a member of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"(This work) is precious to the Savior," he continued. "He is mindful of those who support and sustain it. It is not trivial to him for, as he taught, it is the work that will ultimately influence our eternal fate."

The new Sandy Deseret Industries store opens Thursday morning at 10, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 9:30 a.m. At 27,500 square feet of space, it is one of the largest of the church's 42 Deseret Industries stores, and will have the capacity to train 140 employees at any given time.

The adjoining LDS Employment Resource Center is expected to help about 2,400 individuals find jobs or cultivate self-employment each year. Like the LDS Family Services Agency, it will serve church members from 52 nearby stakes as well as other members of the community who have been referred by LDS ecclesiastical leaders. Both of these facilities also open Thursday.

The new Sandy LDS welfare complex, President Eyring said, is "a modern monument to the idea that we cannot properly worship our God without 'remembering in all things the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted, for he that doeth not these things, the same is not his disciple'."

"We cannot and we will not shift this responsibility of caring for the poor to others," he continued. "We cannot delegate it to our neighbor."

Rather, President Eyring said, "it is our hope that we will be a source of strength and service to the people in these surrounding communities that both patronize and donate to these operations."

President Eyring noted that the dedication was taking place 75 years, almost to the day, since the church opened its first Deseret Industries building (then known as Welfare Industries but soon changed to its current name because church leaders were uncomfortable with the link between the word "welfare" and the government dole). He pointed out the racks of clothing that surrounded the dedicatory congregation, as well as the shelves filled with books and household supplies and the aisles of furniture both donated and new and observed that "for many, this is what Deseret Industries represents."

"But as with our other facilities, what you see on the outside is merely a shadow of the true purpose and reason for its existence," President Eyring said. "In this facility and others like it you will find some of the finest people this world has to offer. Often those who come here have journeyed through dark valleys of suffering and distress, persecution and failure. No matter the path they have walked, here they are offered safety and blessed hope — a place of understanding, nurturing and encouragement."

Deseret Industries, he said, "is a bridge to a better life."

Other speakers during the hour-long dedicatory service also referred to the lives that will be improved through the work performed at the three facility entities. Elder L. Whitney Clayton of the LDS Church's Presidency of the Seventy referred to the many wildernesses through which people travel during the course of their lives.

Popular Comments

I really, really can't understand how someone might conclude that the
Church needs to be "more open" about the opening of a new Deseret
Industries. It's a *thrift store.* Its purpose is to help people get back
on their feet.
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8:36 a.m. Aug. 15, 2013

Top comment

Christopher B

Ogden, UT

Brother Benjamim,

I am highly critical of the LDS church with many
things, but I don't share any of your complaints on this one.

Meanwhile in the stake next to mine there are meetinghouses that are 100 miles
from any bishop's storehouse. Unless the Philadelphia employment center is
finally staffed and open again, the nearest one from my house is 100 miles away.
Deseret
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Joseph Walker began his professional writing career in 1980 as a staff writer for the Deseret News in Salt Lake City, eventually becoming the newspaper's television and live theater critic. He left professional journalism more ..